Early in 2012, a friend from school sent out a
message regarding children in Zimbabwe who would not be able to
continue their schooling without financial help – this started me on my current
journey (thank you, Mary!). I also
became involved in short term funding for a young man with special needs so
that he could access a post-school skills-based programme in Harare organised through
Sunshine. Sunshine is part of the Silver
Linings Trust; this organisation provides education to special needs children
in Harare.
The project began in March 2012 with the submission of a proposal to the Ministry of Education, Sport, Art and Culture in Zimbabwe as well as to colleagues who work with special needs children and who train teachers.
It was only in August 2012 after planning with Sally Allen of the Silver Linings Trust to deliver an introductory course about speech,
language and communication development and difficulties in children to mainstream, remedial
and special needs teachers in Harare that I finally committed to course delivery in January 2013. Sally has been and is fantastic and I am
really fortunate to have her support and input.
As a result of networking with my colleague, Sydney
Mukwesha, from SPS days, I will also be
providing training to lecturers at the Madziwa Teachers' College in Shamva as a first step in
determining whether the introductory course and the course content is of
interest to the college. I may also feed
into work being done to set up a resource centre at the college. Sydney remains the wonderful man that I had
the privilege of working with in SPS, it is extraordinary to be able to carry
on from where we left off without the 20 year gap making a difference to the
way in which we can work together.
The Ministry of Education, Sport, Art and Culture has also recently expressed an interest in hosting a course.
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